Building Rome

I was trying to learn to play the guitar, but my progress was so slow. I thought I’d never learn. While I was practicing and looking frustrated, somebody said “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” I supposed not, and kept on practicing, hours on end, until I reached the level I wanted to achieve. The encouraging words had helped.

Another time, as I recall, I was trying to write an English paper, but kept ditching my ideas and starting over. It was so hard to get ten pages of thoughts down coherently. My friends noticed how hard I was working and said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” so I would know they understood. I did know, and appreciated the sentiment. Eventually the paper was finished and turned in. It received an A. Clearly my friends deserved a lot of credit.

One other day I was learning to weave, which was an awful idea. I was also thumbs and fingers, very upset, about to give up. The instructor had seen lots of cases like mine and was patient. In about two weeks, my brain and the yarn weren’t tangled at all, and I was able to complete some nice tapestries. Not stunning but good enough to hang on the wall. I had been right to listen to my instructor’s settling words: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Maybe there’s some thing hidden in those six words that makes things turn out all right. Or maybe people only say them when somebody’s struggling but looks capable of succeeding. I find them reassuring and have welcomed them when they were addressed to me. In turn, I’ve offered them in support of others. I mention all this because I began to wonder who had come up with such a useful line. It sounded like a proverb, but I wasn’t sure. Folk knowledge, most likely.

When I got around to looking the saying up, I was quite surprised to find there was an actual author credited with its creation. A real person, born in 1497, who lived into his eighties. John Heywood was from Coventry and did quite a few things in his long life. He was a playwright, a musician, and a composer. He may have acted. A number of his works are readily available still today, including seven plays, poetry, and collections of epigrams and proverbs. 

I wondered how there was so much known about him, yet few people actually know about him now.

Apart from Heywood’s artistic pursuits, he married Sir Thomas More’s niece. That put him in contact with an important family. Another thing he did was become the famous metaphysical poet John Donne’s grandfather. Heywood definitely was in the right places at the right times, meaning several royal courts - four, to be exact. This was despite professing the inappropriate Catholic religion.

You might be wondering about the purpose for this story about a person whom many have never heard of, although they have heard of Sir Thomas More because of his Utopia and John Dunne for lines like “no man is an island” and “death be not proud” as well as both erotic and religious poetry. Dunne, whose poor wife had a dozen children in sixteen years before giving up the ghost.

I looked up “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and found it was one of Heywood’s creations. I was curious, and when I discovered he was the unknown author of lines known to English speakers everywhere, I was confused. Now I must confess something: I have always wanted to be famous. Wasn’t sure how or when, but I did. Now I had an idea how to go about it.

Heywood is unfamiliar to all but the most learned scholars, while his proverbs and epigrams are familiar to everybody. Perhaps that is unfair, but it’s the truth. It occurred to me that I could borrow his famous lines, give them a twist to make them more contemporary, and in so doing I could achieve the fame I desired. My words would be on everyone’s lips, and so would my name, because I would make sure everybody knew who had written them.

As a test, I’ve gathered some of Heywood’s lines and then have created my own version. This won’t be plagiarism, since I’m not claiming ownership of the originals, which I believe are from the mid-sixteenth century. 

Famous epigrams by me. Inspiration source, meaning Heywood’s lines, in parentheses.

(Haste maketh waste.) Don’t get sloppy. If you screw up, you’ll have to go back to square one. Don’t come crying to me then.

(Out of sight out of mind.) When I can’t see you, I’m with someone else. Do you think I’m sitting home twiddling my thumbs?

(When the sun shineth, make hay.) Party time!

(Look ere ye leap.) No-brainer. 

(Two heads are better than one.) You don’t have a clue, do you?

(Love me, love my dog.) What you see is what you get. (Hope that saying is not taken already.)

(Beggars should be no choosers.) You’re such a loser, stop bugging me.

(All is well that ends well.) Pulled a fast one, didn’t we?

(I know on which side my bread is buttered.) Suck-up and proud of it.

(One good turn asketh another.) You owe me. Big time.

(A penny for your thought.) You’re not worth much.

(Rome was not built in one day.) So what? Neither was Paris. Or Tokyo.

(Better late than never.) In your case, better never.

(An ill wind that bloweth no man to good.) This is the last winter I’m spending in Maine. I’m moving to Florida.

(The more the merrier.) The hot tub’s on. Come on over.

(You cannot see the wood for the trees.) Blockhead!

(This hitteth the nail on the head.) Put that hammer down! I’ll call the cops!

(No man ought to look a given horse in the mouth.) Call the vet!

(Wolde ye bothe eate your cake and haue your cake?) Let them eat cake. I hate it, all that sugar and stuff. Off with their heads while they’re at it!

That’s all I’ve worked out for now, but I believe if you give my creations a shot, they’ll show their literary quality. They may be slightly different from Heywood’s work, but mine are modern and make sense. If you read the list a few times, you’ll see how my versions start to off your tongue. Note, too, that I have avoided any profanity. One reason is that edgy or vulgar terms often fall into disuse, if not oblivion. I prefer my writing to be timeless and thus want to avoid dating it.

The question now is how to get these new phrases into circulation. I mean, Heywood had the advantage of the printing press, which Gutenberg and friends had been working on years before his birth. I don’t think I can convince a press to publish my humble but ambitious first effort to become famous. If Heywood could do it, I can, since I’m basing my work on his. (Again: not plagiarism.) That means self-publishing, maybe my only option.

Unfortunately, I’m thinking again about how Rome wasn’t built in a day and thinking about how I’m no spring chicken. I’m not prepared to spend year after year promoting my book of proverbs or epigrams or brainy quotes as one website calls them. If obliged to give up my Heywood-based plan for achieving fame, what else might work?

Contact: mefame@main.edu with suggestions.